Thankyou
by featherxquill
Summary: Minerva McGonagall gave Harry Potter his first broom. How can he ever thank her for it? Based on the McGonagall created in 'School Of Second Chances'. Fluffy. Please give it a go. Have a read, and leave a review. Concrit welcome.


_By God, the feel of that satiny skin underneath her fingers, those eyes that were so deep it was unbearable. It was almost painful, the way he looked at her, the way those eyes took in her naked form in the light, and she tried desperately to not flinch beneath it, because she was embarrassed, self conscious, ashamed. She was not beautiful, her body had long since ceased to be so, and yet his touches made her feel like a goddess, the way he stared at her as if he'd never seen a woman before, it filled her up inside with something that was hot, and sweet, and mellow, all at the same time. He made her _feel_ beautiful, and just for those moments, he took the loneliness off all those years away._

Her eyes had been red with tears that day, the day she watched as Albus Dumbledore handed graduation scrolls to the students who had become he favourite Gryffindors in many, many years. A regal Hermione Granger, all slick curls and burgeoning womanhood, Ron Weasley, taller and taller, growing from beneath the shadows of his older brothers. Neville Longbottom, who had cried himself and hugged Professor Sprout so hard that she expected he was a closet Hufflepuff. And Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The Nearly-a-Man Who Defeated Voldemort. She had been like a leaking tap.

Not even a stinging barb from her rival Head of House had been able to stop her, as Severus Snape had glanced at her with something that could have been surprise or revulsion, curled his lip and spoken. "For Merlin's sake, Minerva, pull yourself together."

_"No, don't blow out the candles. I want to look at you..."_

_The heat rising in her cheeks, the flush of embarrassment, forcing herself not to curl into a ball and hide her form.__ That soft face against hers, those silken kisses upon her cheeks, those hands that trailed her and touched her and lifted her into the air as firmly as they pressed her into the soft duvet of the bed._

_"You are beautiful, Minerva."_

_And then those soft lips trailing down her throat and across her body and proving it to her in ways that he could never say.___

It had taken only a few hours, a few hours for it to all sink in. They were gone. They had walked from Hogwarts for the final time, and they were never going to return. Not as students, at least. The tears had faded into a strange disappointing pit of _never the same again_, and it seemed the whole school felt it. They had been the golden year, there was no denying it, and all houses felt the loss. Even Slytherin, even Snape. No longer having Malfoy as their house King did strange things to both the house and its master, no longer any open hostility or Deatheaters that could never be.

_How did he manage it? How did he manage to break open that shell, to touch her in ways that made her scream, she who had not taken a lover since she was twenty years old, afraid of what that meant, of what that revealed, of the reasons why someone would want her, of the chain around her throat that had no weight and all weight. Why was it that his fingers trailing her abdomen, dipping into the heat that was her, tasting her and nibbling her and caressing her, how was it that she managed to lose control for him, that she could trust that he did not want anything but her, mind and body? How could he be so innocent for one who was not innocent at all? How could he have such pure intentions? And how could she believe so implicitly, that he did?_

She could not believe it when Harry returned, she had thought she had seen him leave, he had left, gone to Hogsmeade to celebrate with his friends, but he had returned.

"We can't get rid of you, can we, Potter?" But she had smiled at him warmly, trying not to cry again, as though someone had heard her tears and sent her one last moment with one of them, something to keep her going for the rest of the year before the others went on holidays.

He had given her that crooked smile of his, the one that he gave to people who actually saw beyond the scar on his forehead. "Well, I didn't want to just leave. I couldn't. Hogwarts has been my home for the past seven years, in the only way that ever really mattered. I just thought to make a final round."

She smiled at him, a truly warm smile, and gestured for him to sit. "Would you like something to drink, Harry? Since you're no longer a student, I have some rather good scotch."

_And when she touched him, when she lifted those tentative fingers and wrapped them around his young manhood, and he quivered beneath her touch and whimpered against her, it thrilled her as much as the way he touched her, when she took him in her mouth and heard him cry out her name, she soared above the world. When she took him inside her, when she surrendered to him completely, and he questioned not the locket about her throat that had materialised at that moment and just lost himself in her, she had lost herself in him, lost herself in pain and pleasure and pure, simple trust, trust of him solely and completely._

"Whatever you suggest, Professor." He had smiled again.

"You may call me Minerva, Harry, I'm not your Professor anymore."

He shifted in his seat a little, as if the idea was strange, then looked at her again. "All right, Minerva." He spoke as if tasting the word on his tongue.

She crossed the room to pull two crystal tumblers from the cupboard, retrieved her scotch from where she locked it away from prying, underage fingers, and poured them both generous servings of the amber liquid.

Handing the glass to him without a flourish, she smiled. "Enjoy it, Harry, it's the best there is."

_Where was the woman she had been, and where was she now? Who did these wanton cries for more belong to, whose toes were these that she could feel curling, where was the self restraint, where were the inhibitions? How could her skin be so warm and vibrant and full of life? How could he want her, and why did she no longer bother to question this, how had he finally affirmed it to her?_

_Nothing mattered except this. This heat and heat, this skin on skin. What was life, what was death, what was time? What were the years between them but moments, what did any of it matter when he was atop her, when he mad love to her and worshiped her and made her everything she had ever wanted to be?_

They talked of the years gone by, they talked of the Order, they talked of the defeat of Voldemort and what his parents had been like as students and all the things he had done over the years that he could say now because she couldn't take points from him anymore. They spoke of the Weasleys, and Wizengmot, and the state of the world, then he glanced about the office, and his eyes settled upon the gleaming Quidditch Cup that was displayed proudly on her mantle.

He gestured to it with his glass. "Do you think you'll still have that, next year?"

She glanced in the same direction that he was looking. "If Severus Snape has anything to do with it, no. If Ginny Weasley does, yes."

He chuckled, then looked all thoughtful. "You know, in my third year, when I tried to drive off the Dementors, before I found the most happy memory in this brain, I found the second happiest, and it was flying. Quiddich. The only thing I've ever really been good at, at school. You know who I owe that to?" He quirked a brow at her.

She watched him for a few moments. "Who?"

He smiled again. "You. You bought me my first broom. How can I ever say Thankyou for that?"

_And that angelic face now, wrapped in a blanket of sleep, like an angel, lying beside her, that scar that tore across is forehead, that so defined how the world saw him, fading in the aftermath of the Dark Lord's destruction. A perfect being. The one that had found the key to her locked heart, with no pun intended._

_Her voice was a whisper, so as not to wake him. "Thankyou, Harry."_


End file.
